The Ministry of Home Affairs is seeking to regularise the use of two of international bus service routes for the transportation of passengers between Guyana and Brazil.
In a public advisory in yesterday’s Guyana Chronicle, the ministry identified the two established routes as: 1 – Lethem, Guyana to Boa Vista (return), which will operate twice daily; and 2 – Georgetown, Guyana to Boa Vista, Brazil (return), which will operate once daily.
The two routes are in keeping with the Guyana-Brazil International Road Transport Agreement (IRTA), it noted, while setting out technical requirements for buses that will be allowed to operate along the routes and for the registration of transporting firms that seek to operate along them.
According to the advisory, the buses which will operate on the routes shall not be older than 10 (ten) years from the date of manufacture and must be air-conditioned, carry a seating capacity of no less than 32 seats, provide seat belts for driver and passengers and a tachograph, which automatically records the bus speed and distance must be fitted onto the vehicle. Washroom facilities as well as facilities to enable the transport of physically challenged persons are also part of the requirements.
The buses shall undergo a technical inspection by the Works Ministry, after which certificates of vehicular inspection will be issued.
Persons wishing to transport passengers on the routes must apply to the Home Affairs Ministry to register as a transporting firm with the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Several documents, including a tax identification number, certificate of vehicle registration, motor vehicle and road service licences, internationally valid third party insurance policy certificate and a public proxy instrument granting a legal representative in Brazil full powers to represent the firm in all legal and administrative acts are also required to be presented with the application for registration. “Only the buses registered will be issued with the permission to ply the above international routes,” the advisory noted.
It adds that a transporting firm is required to secure appropriate permission from the National Agency for Road Transportation in Brazil in order to ply the route. Within 120 days of the permit granted here, the operator must present to the Brazilian authorities a certificate of permission granted by the Home Affairs Ministry as well as a public proxy instrument granting a legal representative in Guyana full powers to represent the firm in all legal and administrative acts.
The buses will be subject to the necessary Immigration and Customs procedures at the border and the fare structure on the buses will be determined by the Home Affairs Ministry in conjunction with the Works Ministry and the operating firms.
